Batter Up For a Good Book

Today kicked off the events for "I Love to Read Week."  This year the activities are centered around a baseball theme, and today was baseball cap day.  It is a very fun treat for the students to be able to wear a favorite hat all day long.  The students also enjoyed tallying up our runs for reading throughout the day including an additional "RBI" time (Reading Books is Important).  Our reading runs will be recorded on our reading scoreboard.  We look forward to the events ahead!

Winter Authors' Celebration

Last Friday families joined us for our Winter Authors' Celebration.  During our daily read aloud we had read many circle stories like "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" by Laura Numeroff.  The students then wrote their own circle stories.  They were so creative in their characters and plot.  Some of the titles included "If You Give a Lion a Latte," "If You Give a Butterfly a Boomerang," and "If You Give a Squid a Sea Gull."  The stories were illustrated using crayon and water color.  The illustrations turned out wonderfully!  We also shared with our families a reading of "Olive My Love" by Vivian Walsh.  Thank you for all who attended!

Happy 100th Day of School

Today we celebrated our 100th day of school with several activities.  During math we compared the weight of sets of 100 objects.  The students then took a few of those items and measured how long 100 items were lined up.  We found that the popsicle sticks were the longest in a row and the paperclips lined up were the shortest.  The students were probably most looking forward to making a 100 day trail mix.  Each student brought in 100 snack items and we combined them all in a big bowl.  As they enjoyed their snack, they used the digits in 100 to make creative designs.  They could move the digits around to make them into whatever design they chose.  The students came up with wonderful ideas such as a mask, tractor, guitar, alligator, monster truck, eagle, and a classroom with a teacher and students.  We'll put all of our designs together in a class book.

Froggy Books

The students in first and second grade are crazy about a new series- Froggy books by Jonathan London!  We have been reading them during our read aloud for the last few weeks, and the students have enjoyed getting to know Froggy and predicting what he will do next.  We have learned that Froggy is often forgetful, clumsy, turns more red in the face than green in each story, and is very kind to his family and friends.  We had a few of these books in our classroom library, and after seeing how much the students love reading them I quickly added more!  During our Daily 5 reading block I see many students reading Froggy books to self or to a classmate.  I just love seeing students getting excited about a favorite series, or character, or author! "Froggy Goes to Hawaii" is going to be at our upcoming book fair, and we can't wait to get our hands on it!

Circle Stories

During Writing Workshop we are currently working on writing our own circle stories.  Circle stories end where they begin.  We read many examples by Laura Numeroff such as "If You Give a Pig a Pancake."  Using a graphic organizer, the students came up with their own character and plot.  The trickiest part is to make sure that you make the full circle and that your character and events end up where they begin.  The students had so much fun with this writing project and came up with several different stories.  Each student chose his or her favorite one to publish.  The students typed up their own stories and are currently working on making the illustrations for their stories using the mediums of crayon and watercolor.  We will be having an Authors' Celebration mid February to share our finished books with our families.  Not only are the stories very creative, but the illustrations are detailed and beautiful!

Line of Symmetry Masks

We have been studying symmetry in our math curriculum for about a month now.  The students have practiced finding lines of symmetry on given shapes and cutting their own shapes with a line of symmetry. Today we made line of symmetry masks.  I found this idea on www.mathwire.com.  I thought this would be a fun project for the students to incorporate what they have learned about symmetry.  Everyone did a great job following each step of the project, and the students made some very unique masks!

Winter Snowflakes

Today we ended our day by making our annual 3-D snowflake project.  This project requires that the students listen very carefully to each step.  The steps include specific folding, cutting, rolling, taping, and stapling.  This year we also added a little sparkly fake snow that was left over from our Christmas ornaments.  The result is a big fluffy snowflake that is perfect to decorate our classroom as we wait for actual snow to fall upon us!  Each year this project produces a mix of excitement and frustration.  The 2nd graders feel excited because they know what the final product looks like, and with their experience they feel confident they can do it.  In the beginning, the 1st graders may feel a little overwhelmed because the steps have to be followed very specifically or one of the snowflake pieces may have to be redone.  As the 1st graders catch on, they also begin to move through each step with ease.  I love to see the students come together to help each other with the steps once they have gained the confidence themselves.  Once students finish their own, they move on to help other students who have questions.  It is teamwork at its best!